1 Timothy 2:11-15

Hey,
everybody. Thanks for being with us.
Welcome back as we finish out the week.
And we do so in kind of an interesting spot.
Probably especially the passage we’re going
to cover today, but even the passages we’ll look at early next week,
perhaps all of next week.
There is a kind of dividing line in these passages.
They’ve evoked a lot of conversation
through the years about what they mean.
And within the church,
there are essentially two groups.
One group has said historically,
“We just think they mean what they say.
We just think that you
take those at face value.” And that’s what it means.
The other group, which has comprised
a lot of different traditions and strands within the church,
has said, “Yeah, we’re not sure about
that, and we think there’s more to it than that.” And that group has worked probably the hardest on
these passages to try and figure out what some of this language means.
So what I’m going to do is
read the whole passage today,
and then there really is a lot to unpack.
So we’ll take a look at it.
Michael and I aren’t going to solve anything for you today,
but we do want to bring you up to speed
on some of the conversations that this text has prompted through the years.
So jumping in at verse 11 here,
“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.
I permit no woman to teach or have
authority over a man.
She is to keep silent.
For Adam was formed first,
then Eve, and Adam was not
deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
Yet she will be saved through
childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness with modesty.” So I don’t know
exactly where to start on this,
so I’m going to tell you some word stuff that we may circle around to.
The word “woman” can be translated “wife.” That has caught people’s attention.
Also,
the word
“silence”
really means “quietness.” That word doesn’t have to mean “silent.” It can mean
sort of “be reserved,” “be quiet,” a certain stillness.
Also,
people have found it very odd
that in verse 15,
you have first person,
“she,” in the front of the verse,
and plural,
“they,”
in the back half of the verse.
And that has been a head-scratcher for people.
And then it’s possible,
again, in verse 12, the word “man”
can be translated “husband.” In fact,
we’ll see that in the very next passage.
And so there’s some language stuff in this passage
that’s been difficult, even in spite of and in addition to the content,
which is also difficult.
Yeah, so once again,
definitely want to follow up and agree with Clint on the lead-in here.
I want to make a point,
as we’re looking at this text,
once again, I know I say this often,
so I apologize if this sounds like a broken record,
but I think you do need to read text
like this in context.
I think they help us to have a much better sense of what was intended, and therefore,
as we really switch into gear to understand what it means in our own context.
But here,
notice that yesterday we talked about this idea of modesty,
and it was spoken of directly
in this idea of dress and what is worn.
That is significant,
because here, as we transition to
verse 11, when it says that a woman should learn in silence with full submission,
this is another
form of modesty.
This is another way of reflecting a cultural ideal in which women would be put in
right order in that cultural milieu.
If you look at some of the writings done about women and their
place in leadership in this time,
and certainly in a cosmopolitan place like the church in Ephesus,
it seems reasonable that this is an extension that no longer a physical extension as it was with
dress, but now an extension of a social relationship of the actual constituted order of the Christian community,
that this is a form of modesty.
And this may, in Paul’s mind,
once again, I’m inserting a little bit here,
but it’s reasonable to believe in Paul’s mind.
This connects back to that, once again,
an idea of not sticking out of being a group of people who are able to live
humbly, peaceably,
and able to practice the faith without drawing the ire of those outside the church.
Now, you know, if that’s the case,
it doesn’t smooth over what the text says.
I mean, Paul clearly says what he says,
and we wrestle with that.
But I think there’s a sense in which
we can step back before we get to verse 13,
which I think has some really interesting theological connotations,
and we understand it’s not just as simple as reading it
and thinking that we know
the direct output, because Clint is right to point out there’s a lot of textual things happening here.
I would argue there’s also a lot of contextual things happening here,
and we want to bring all
of that awareness with us into the text so that we don’t just start checking boxes and walk out.
Yeah, there is a kind of theology in the background here that we refer to as natural
theology, and it’s the idea that you can look at the created order and build some theological
understanding of how God works and how the creation works.
And that really is not an
exclusively Christian way of thinking.
That was true.
There’s natural theology within Judaism.
And to some extent, Michael,
though it would look very different,
we could argue that the Romans,
the Greeks,
the pagans in their own way had a kind of natural theology.
And what they would have
shared, what those systems would have shared at the time,
is this idea that when you look at the world,
you see that men are stronger,
men are in authority,
men conquer,
and they would have
extrapolated from that that that’s the right way,
that that’s how God intended,
because it’s what is.
Now, since that time, Christians have argued—I mean,
that shouldn’t—we have argued,
but we’ve asked a lot of questions about that,
because the gospel seems contrary to what we might,
a lot of the places we might go from natural theology,
which is to say, well,
in nature,
the biggest and strongest prays on the weak,
prays on the sick.
They don’t care for it.
They abuse those.
They eat those.
And we would say,
clearly,
that’s not a lesson that we want to take
from the created order,
because Jesus tells us something just the opposite.
And so,
how far natural theology can be trusted has been a long-standing discussion in the Christian church.
It was raised really pretty early.
And interestingly enough,
even people in the early
church, the ancient church,
who would have agreed with the takeaway of these texts,
raised some very serious questions about natural theology and some very questions,
very good questions, about this text.
And I think we maybe most clearly see that in verse 15.
Verse 15 has led a lot of people
to the conclusion that Paul could not have written this book,
that you just would not
hear Paul say this thing.
She will be saved
through childbearing.
And interestingly enough, in Greek,
it literally says the childbearing,
the childbirth, which some have argued is a reference to Jesus.
That’s maybe a little thin.
But there is an article before it in Greek that doesn’t get included in English.
But if you went through Romans with us,
you will remember that Paul spent
half of that book
laying out the case that we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ,
and we bring nothing to that.
We don’t contribute it to it.
No work that we perform influences it,
affects it, or causes it.
And for that same theologian to now say that a woman,
by bearing children, somehow takes part in being redeemed,
that she has some role in her own redemption.
I mean, this is
so out of place with everything else Paul teaches that the best
biblical minds in the history of the church have really been left kind of scratching their head on it.
Right.
So I would go back here to verse 13,
because I think it helps us.
This idea that Adam was formed first,
then Eve.
Adam was not deceived,
but the woman was and became a transgressor.
This is classic
kind of Old Testament interpretation that we see in lots of different
texts and places.
So I just want to make it clear that this idea that the Genesis text shows us a kind of ordering.
Once again, the word would be natural theology.
So the way that the world is
ordered and then that from that we learn these spiritual truths is not groundbreaking theology
at all.
In fact, it very much smacks of a very kind of Jewish interpretive framework.
And that makes sense because if you were with us for Genesis,
you know how much of that book was built
upon the idea of genealogy about who’s the heir going to be.
And not just the heir,
but the spiritual heir, because we know how often the physical heir and the spiritual heir sometimes
got out of the natural order kind of sink and God went with the youngest as opposed to the oldest
know all these kinds of things.
Right.
So the point I want to make here is when we get to verse 15,
we get this idea of salvation through childbirth.
It does not just drop in to this out of the blue,
though I think it strikes most of us as coming out of the blue.
I think if you understand where
it sits in a tradition that holds that we see in Genesis the ordering of the problem.
And so therefore we would expect the ordering of the solution to undo it.
Right.
The idea that it was
the woman who caused the problem,
which if you read Genesis, by the way,
that it doesn’t take
interpretive gymnastics to see that both Adam and Eve sinned.
I mean,
that that is apparent in that
text, but it’s the interpretation of it that was common that says then that,
well, then it makes sense if it was the woman,
then it’s the woman by this action who in some ways unravels that that
is to accentuate Clint’s point radically different than what we hear when we’re told in Christ,
there is no slave or free.
There is no Jew or Gentile.
There’s no male or female.
The one who writes that seems very much opposed in idea to the one who wrote this unless I think you’re
willing to understand that there is a kind of framework that this may have been written within
an understanding in which was intended.
That doesn’t take away.
I’m certain the author intended it as it reads.
And you know, that doesn’t resolve the tension for us.
And I know Clint,
we’re going to talk a little bit about how we wrestle with that as modern readers of the text,
but it is to say,
most of us, and if I’m going to be honest,
I would fit this group as well.
We come to a text like
this and our gut reaction is instinctive.
And we respond in such a way that we find it very hard
to hear and learn from the text because we want,
we just get our fist balled up and we’re ready to,
clock Paul in the jaw.
And I understand how we get there,
but if we’re willing to
be a little bit more of an interrogator of the text,
I think we find some really interesting things.
Yeah,
it’s interesting.
I think there are two things that are true of this text that are
both in their context,
hard to hear on either side of the discussion.
So for those
who are troubled by this text,
those who are in traditions where this is not the norm,
in traditions where women take part in leadership,
for those who are women in the church and have been leaders,
these words are very hard to hear.
And there is an upside in them.
The fact that Paul says,
or the author says here,
“Let women learn,” it doesn’t mean much to us,
but it is itself
a stride forward in the day because in that moment there were people who said women couldn’t
go into the synagogue,
for instance, and take part in the educational piece.
They couldn’t be a part of the conversations with rabbis.
So the fact that Paul says here, “Let women learn,”
is something significant, though if you are offended by the rest of these words,
it’s going to seem like faint praise.
On the other hand,
if you’re a person who would read this and
say, “Well, it says it, that’s what it must mean,” and it doesn’t just mean it in Ephesus where, yes,
maybe there were some wives who were causing trouble,
and maybe this is Paul telling some husbands,
“Hey, you need a little better scene control.
Your wife is acting up,
and she needs to be quiet, and you need to step up and be a leader.” I don’t know if that’s happening,
but whether or not it is,
there are people who would say,
“Well, that doesn’t matter.
This says women don’t speak in church.
That’s the rule.” Well,
the problem with that is
there are numerous,
and I don’t mean a few.
I mean a plethora of other parts in Scripture
where Paul praises women who have worked with him,
where he calls them fellow workers in Christ,
where he commends their effort,
where he commends their knowledge.
Timothy’s own grandmother is
going to be praised as a woman of faith,
and he remembered, if you remember,
Timothy,
what you learned from your grandmother.
He’s going to make that specific appeal.
What she taught him
about the faith.
And then in the context of all these other things that Paul says,
it
makes it strange that we would grab these particular verses and treat them as if they are
the end of the story,
because clearly it’s more complex than that.
And again, this is not,
Michael, this isn’t really the Presbyterian struggle because we’ve not tended to live on the literalist
side of the fence.
But for those who have,
it is perhaps telling that these are the verses they
choose rather than those other ones.
And I do think if you look at all that is said, you would
have to admit ultimately that you’re picking a side.
I don’t think you could say that this is
the main voice that Paul speaks to the issue across the board.
I just don’t think that would
be a fair summary of what’s out there,
what’s in the scripture.
If you’re a literalist and you read
this, what do you say about Lydia?
I mean, someone who very clearly is wealthy and…
Syntyche and Euodia, I mean…
They are important and they’re actually called leaders in the church.
So when you’re said that
I permit no woman to have authority over a man,
there are literal texts where women that are
named as being leaders of Christian communities.
So yeah, you’re exactly right, Clint, that there
is trouble when you come to the biblical texts and you’re looking for each and every sentence
left unto its own inscription to give us particular and literal guidance for this particular
thing.
Because the problem with that is we get fixated on the very law that Paul was just
criticizing just a few short chapter or verses ago.
And so I do think it’s worth noting here as
well that as we come to a text like this,
we both have to ask what was meant by Paul if this was
indeed written entirely by Paul to the community that it was sent to.
In other words, if you were alive and you were in that church
family and you received that letter,
what would have it meant to you there?
What was Paul addressing?
That is one very interesting line
of inquiry and biblical
scholars have written entire books on this section.
And so if you’re interested in that,
there’s a lot of resources that you can jump into.
But there’s another very interesting line
of inquiry that I think leads us a little bit further to ask if Paul was writing to our Christian
community in our own context,
in our own time,
what are the principles that are included in this
that Paul may then speak in our own place?
That must be done with a substantial,
substantial level of humility,
right?
Because no one here is writing scripture.
And so we must come to the interpretation
of scripture with the full awareness that we are doing so as humans who are so quick to put our own
assumptions on our own judgments and worldviews in front of the holy scripture and what God wants
to teach us through revelation.
By the way, that’s partly why we read scripture in community,
is because other people help us to have checks and balances in those native kind of assumptions
that we bring to the text.
But that’s an aside.
The point I wanted to make is simply this.
I want to encourage you, if you find yourself on the side that finds these words incredibly challenging,
maybe even you would say troubling,
or maybe even you would go so far as to say offensive.
If you find yourself there,
I want to encourage you to consider when put within that overall arc of the gospel,
especially as we see Luke portraying Jesus as the one who comes for the lost and the least,
the image of the woman caught in adultery brought to Jesus.
He says the first one with any
sin, throw the first stone,
an incredible mark of grace to a woman who in that culture and time
would have deserved none of it.
When you look at the leadership of the early church and the names
of women included in that,
there is a substantial body of evidence,
I think, to suggest that we
come to a text like this seeking to
learn what it has to teach us about modesty and humility.
And I’m not speaking particularly of women here.
I think as church people,
what does it mean to
be
authority and who we put in authority?
What are the measures of that?
And how does our salvation
in Jesus Christ become thoughtfully pursued in the actions that we take?
I think that, too, is a very helpful line of inquiry.
And if there are some who that’s going to make uncomfortable
as well, and I understand that,
but I think it’s important that we come to the text with an openness
to engage it in lots of places because I think the text is big enough to meet us in that line of inquiry.
And I can’t soften it,
and I don’t think it’s right to try to fill in the gaps to
make a text that does say what it says easier,
but I do think it’s worth recognizing the complexity
of it because it’s deeper than you might think.
Yeah, I think we should at least acknowledge
that while it does say some things that are troubling,
there are lots of question marks.
There are question marks about the translation,
about the language.
There are some significant
question marks about some of the theological implications.
So we,
I think,
with humility, have to admit it is very unlikely
that we understand everything that this text
was trying to say or perhaps is trying to say,
and we should therefore treat it very carefully.
We should not use it as a weapon.
Paul is, as one of the commentators said,
trying to use a wrench in Ephesus,
and we have often created a sledgehammer outside of Ephesus.
And I think that it is worth being humble as we approach a text like this,
and it is also worth
remembering that one of the things the Scripture will do for all of us,
including the early church,
is to help us ask questions of our culture,
to help us ask questions of the assumptions around us
and reevaluate those assumptions in light of who we understand Jesus Christ to be.
And that’s true in our conversations about things like gender,
how we treat each other,
what it means to have authority,
what it means to learn,
what it means to submit.
All of those things have to be reexamined through the lens of the cross and the resurrection.
And I think this
text gives us a really good opportunity,
though a difficult one, to do that.
Clint, I don’t want to misspeak,
so correct me if you disagree.
I just want to be very clear.
I am unaware of any Reformed theologian that I’ve read who would argue that verse 15 and this
language of “should be saved through childbirth.” I’m unaware of any Reformed theologian who would
be willing to say that the action of a human can result in salvation.
We firmly believe in what we
believe to be the overall gospel narrative that salvation comes by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ.
And so I want to make it clear,
if you come to a text and think, “Well,
we have to read that literally,” then I think you’re going to struggle with the very literal text of Romans
where the fundamental theological understanding of what salvation is mapped out.
And so I just
want to make it clear that we’re going to have to wrestle with 15,
because I’m not aware of anyone
in our tradition historically who would make that case.
No, there are people who would make that natural theology connection to Genesis 3,
where the penalty for sin for Eve was a more painful childbirth.
But Adam shares in the punishment,
not that punishment, but he gets his own sets of punishment.
Clearly, he’s also guilty.
He doesn’t stand innocent.
It’s not her fault.
They are both, the man and woman,
both kicked out of the garden,
both sentenced to hardship in life and toil.
And Michael, I think maybe a good place to
put a pin in that for now is,
as a general rule, folks,
it is a good interpretive approach.
When you have entire books that say one thing and a verse that seems to say something else,
go with the majority.
Go with half the book of Romans.
Go with Galatians.
Go with Ephesians.
Go with all of the places that the Bible teaches something.
And when one verse stands out that
seems like it says something different,
realize that that verse is going to be a struggle that
we may or may not be able to make sense of.
But one verse doesn’t negate entire chapters of very clear, very thoughtful,
very important teaching.
Now,
if you don’t think that can happen in the Scripture,
if you live on the side of the fence that says,
“Well, no, the Scripture doesn’t ever
disagree with itself,” then you have another approach to take.
But for those of us in the
Reformed Church that understand this is a complex and complicated document,
go with the weight.
I mean, take the bulk and don’t get too troubled by the exception.
Go with the rule.
Tis is the reality of holy mystery.
I think it’s well summarized.
Thanks for being with us,
friends.
It’s a joy to have you with us.
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and we will see you next week.
Have a good weekend.